"Who was with the district attorney?"
Guerilla told him and resumed the thread of his discourse. "When the district attorney and the other witnesses examined the Walton premises, they found plenty of evidence that there'd been a fight, and they found a lot of supplies gone, cartridges, grub and such, Hazel had bought in town the morning before."
"Is that all?" asked Billy when Guerilla paused.
"Lemme get my breath," Guerilla begged indignantly. "The whole business is so tangled and mixed up it's hard to tell it straight. No, it ain't all. The district attorney says those supplies were bought for you and they were taken by you. Hazel's ridin' horse, the one used to be her uncle's, that's gone too—with you."
"If Rale thinks I was at Hazel's, it's reasonable to assume I might have had a hand in killin' Rafe my own self. That goes double for Dan Slike, seeing he had the knife last."
"It's reasonable all right enough, but then you and Dan Slike ain't noways available, and Hazel is right handy. Rale admits you might have done it, and he keeps yawpin' the evidence is strong against Hazel, and he would be false to his oath of office if he didn't put her in jail."
"False to his oath of office! Rale!"
"Yeah, ain't it a joke?" contemptuously.
"But how did Slike get hold of the butcher knife, that's what I want to know? He didn't have it on him when I arrested him last January."
"That's the damndest part of the whole deal, Bill. Hazel says Dan Slike came to her place before Rafe did, and it was him took the supplies and her horse and her hat and that very same butcher knife which gave Rafe his come-uppance. Slike beat her almost senseless too, she said."